While UP Kilos Na welcomes the news of Malacanang’s proposed increase of P3.9 billion in UP’s 2013 budget and an increase of P11.3 billion for the 2012 budget of State Universities and Colleges (SUCs), it does so with scepticism until :

1) this proposal is passed by Congress and enacted as the 2013 General Appropriations Act; and

2) a clearer breakdown of the increases in the personal services and the MOOE is clarified. The allocation for personal services is expected to increase because of the implementation of the fourth and last tranche of the Salary Standardization Law III which was passed in 2008. And we do not know the itemization of the MOOE or even the details of the allocation for Capital Outlay.

What is revolting about the announcement released by UP Vice President for Public Administration, Prospero de Vera, aside from it being premature, is the abject manner by which President Alfredo Pascual expressed his gratitude to President Aquino, to DBM Budget Secretary Abad and to CHED Chair Licuanan:

“The leadership of President Aquino, coupled with committed support from CHED Chair Patricia Licuanan and DBM Secretary Butch Abad, is responsible for the biggest ever increase in the UP budget and we thank the PNoy administration for this decisive action, adds Pascual.”

The statement of President Pascual denies the fact that it was Aquino and Abad who were principally responsible for the cuts in the UP budget in 2011 and 2012.

Remember this?

We allocated P23.4 billion to 112 State Universities and Colleges (SUCs) in 2011. This is 1.7 percent lower than the P23.8 billion budget for 2010. We are gradually reducing the subsidy to SUCs to push them toward becoming self-sufficient and financially independent, given their ability to raise their income and to utilize it for their programs and projects.

– Pres. Noynoy Aquino in hisBudget message(August 24, 2010)

The statement of President Pascual also denies, omits, and erases the role of the UP community, its students, faculty and staff in almost all constituent universities, in opposing the budget cuts and in demanding for higher state subsidy to UP and for all SUCs!

It is historical revisionism at its worst and is tragic because barely a year has passed since the 2012 UP Strikes Back campaign and already the role of the UP community has been deleted from the official statement of the UP President!

But if such role is not acknowledged by President Pascual, the various documentation of the actions in 2010 and 2011 provides clear evidence that the proposed increase in UP’s budget for 2013 is not due to the generosity of the powers-that-be but is the recognition of the validity of the demand, raised by the UP community in various venues and various forms, that public universities should be adequately supported by the state!

The Pascual Administration’s “amnesia” on the role of the students, faculty, and staff in asserting and in fighting against the diminishing public character of the University does not augur well for the UP community. But as the history of the University itself has shown, a united and militant studentry, faculty and staff, regardless of who sits in Quezon Hall and the extent of its kowtowing to Malacanang, will continue to fight, to march and to claim UP as a public university, as a university of the people and in the service of the poor and marginalized.